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Sebastien Loeb won the season opener for the FIA GT Series. Photo by RED BULL

Sebastien Loeb wins FIA GT Series opener

March 31, 2013

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Nine-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb made a winning start to his latest racing endeavor by claiming victory in the opening race of the FIA GT Series at Nogaro.

The Frenchman, who shared his Sebastien Loeb Racing McLaren MP4-12C with Alvaro Parente, overtook the WRT Audi of Nikolas Mayr-Melnhof with four laps of the one-hour race to go.

Parente had run nose to tail with Mayr-Melnhof’s teammate, pole winner Rene Rast, through the opening stint, before the Loeb car lost a couple of seconds during the pit stop sequence.

Loeb needed only three laps to close down the deficit to the Audi R8 LMS ultra but a further nine laps to find a way past amateur driver May-Melnhof into Turn 7 at the end of the long back straight.

Loeb is focusing on racing this year as he winds down his rally career.

“We were still in contact with him after the pit stops. I struggled with him a little bit, but in the end I was able to find a little opportunity.”

Mayr-Melnhof, who claimed the Pro-Am class with Rast, said, “The tires were going off a little bit; I was struggling a bit with grip onto the long straight.”

Third place and second in the Pro class were taken by the HTP Gravity Charouz Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG driven by Alon Day and Maximilian Buhk.

A quick turnaround during the mandatory pitstops propelled the car from outside the top 10 into third position.

Buhk, champion in last year’s FIA GT3 European Championship, was more than 13 seconds behind Loeb after the pit stops but was able to close down on the battling leaders to finish just over a tenth behind Mayr-Melnhof at the finish.

Audi took fourth and fifth positions with the solo R8s entered by the Phoenix Racing and Novadriver squads, which were driven respectively by Enzo Ide and Anthony Kumpen and Cesar Campanico and Carlos Vieira.

Sixth place went to the Seyffarth Motorsport Merc driven by Jan Seyffarth and GT debutant Karun Chandhok, who lost time with a slow pit stop.